COLD-BLOODED CHARACTERS NEVER HEAT UP 'LIAISONS'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

Perhaps we've seen this tale a few too many times now. Perhaps we've reached an age in which the depiction of classically devious behavior has lost a bit of its sting. Perhaps, as a result, ``Les Liaisons Dangereuses'' - the 219-year-old tale so artfully spun by Choderlos de Laclos and adapted by Christopher Hampton - isn't, er, dating well in the ``Survivor''/``Sopranos'' era of pop culture. Does the Vicomte de Valmont have anything on Livia Soprano?

Or maybe it's simply the treatment this time around. The handsomely mounted but curiously hollow version of ``Les Liaisons'' at the Pasadena Playhouse just doesn't seem to have the asp's venomous cunning powering it along that the material requires. As rendered by director Sheldon Epps, ``Liaisons'' feels neither gleefully wicked nor especially tragic (this is, after all, a love story of sorts).

How this has happened in Pasadena isn't the easiest puzzle to unravel since most of the necessary elements are in place. The glaring exception is James Sutorius as the male half of a pair of depraved aristocrats playing sexual power games. His Valmont, the ruthless seducer who loses at his own game, never seems a match for Lynnda Ferguson's Marquise de Merteuil.

Epps isn't directing for maximum pathos and he has cut Hampton's final image of the guillotine - the signal that with the arrival of the revolution, destructive game-playing will come to a bloody end.

Nor are his actors especially pushing the play's sexy humor. Sutorius' Valmont is positively genteel in his seduction of the naive convent girl Cecile Volanges. And Cecile is just as eager to learn some new tricks.

Cecile's deflowering, a mode of revenge against one of Merteuil's former lovers, is the first half of the Valmont-Merteuil wager. Part two is the real challenge: the corruption of the virtuous - and very married - Mme de Tourvel who knows all about Valmont and his reputation. If Valmont succeeds, he gets a carnal reunion with Merteuil.

All well and good, but in Pasadena, the stakes don't seem especially high even though Monette Magrath's intensely conflicted Tourvel does the character proud. Here's a character who doesn't belong in the same universe as the Valmonts and Merteuils. Young lovers Cecile (Gemma Massot) and Danceny (Drew Ebersole) are appropriate nitwits, flies in a spider web.

Ferguson's Merteuil doesn't seem to be enjoying the match, but the actress gets under her character's skin enough to make us understand - if not empathize with - her behavior. Given some of Merteuil's speeches, a less careful actress can turn the character into a portrait of feminist avenger gone vicious. Ferguson avoids the pitfall. In her hands, Merteuil is icy, but not frozen.

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At Pasadena Playhouse, James Sutorius, left, and LynndaFerguson portray the scheming duo who live for nothing elsebut ``Les Liaisons Dangereuses.''

``LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES''

Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through April 22.

Tickets: $15 to $42.50. Call [phone].

Our rating: Two and one half stars